


Summer, Playing Dumber Than In Fall

by yourcrookedheart



Series: New Romantics [2]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Bisexuality, Infidelity, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Season/Series 01 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-01-06 10:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18386510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourcrookedheart/pseuds/yourcrookedheart
Summary: Summer arrives in Greendale as Harvey, Sabrina and Nick find new ways to fall apart and together.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I promised a sequel to _Once Upon a Midnight Dreary_ a while back. This is that story. You don't need to have read the first part to be able to follow this fic--the only thing you need to know going in is that Harvey and Sabrina are dating, and Sabrina and Nick are dating, and they're all pretending very hard everything is going swell. 
> 
> Since I wrote this before season 2 aired it's now officially an AU. The only thing I changed is the name and pronouns for Theo. If you have any questions about the tags, feel free to hit me up on tumblr and I'll be happy to give you more information.

The hands of the clock on the wall ticked on with a patience Harvey couldn’t muster at the moment. It was Friday afternoon, close to the end of the school year, and Harvey had a date with Sabrina this weekend. Class was the absolute last place he wanted to be at the moment. He received a glare from the girl next to him for tapping his marker to the beat of the seconds passing and resisted the urge to glare back at her.

Two more minutes…

Harvey reveled in the sweet melody of the bell for a few moments before catching up with Roz and Theo in the hallway. After getting back together with Sabrina he’d made a concentrated effort to get closer to them so he could answer her questions about her friends. Sneaking around with Harvey she could do, she’d said. Spending time with her friends without rousing suspicion was impossible. And so Harvey kept up the near-weekly movie hangouts with the two, and everyone was satisfied.

It wasn’t a hardship, exactly. He didn’t quite get Theo, but he’d always gotten along well with Roz. Neither of them seemed to question why he’d suddenly reinitiated their friendship after months of radio silence.

“I’m gonna fail math,” Theo sighed, nearly buckling beneath the weight of his backpack. He held Roz’ arm as they descended the stairs outside.

“Stop it. You’re not gonna fail math.” Roz turned to Harvey, her eyes latching onto a spot a few inches to his right. He hadn’t gotten quite used to that yet. “What are you doing this weekend, Harvey? Theo and I are having a party.” She dragged out the word ‘party’ like a game show host. “In this case party means terrible 80s movies and snacks at Theo’s place.”

“I’ve got plans,” Harvey said before thinking, only realizing his error when Roz and Theo both turned to frown at him.

“With who?”

He fumbled for a reply. “My dad. He wants to go camping. Father and son bonding, or something.” Shrugging his shoulders to indicate how very much he was not looking forward to this camping trip, he quickly stepped ahead of them to cross the parking lot.

“That sucks,” Roz said. It was probably genuine. She’d met his dad.

Harvey dodged a group of loud freshmen girls headed straight for him and turned his head with the intention of a half-hearted admonishment, when he spotted a familiar figure leaning against a black Buick.

Nick had dressed moderately for the occasion, which meant something that passed for rich-boy attire with a leather jacket and expensive jeans. For all his attempts at blending in, he looked like he’d never set foot on Baxter High grounds. As for the car he was leaning against, Harvey knew for a fact that Nick didn’t have a license.

“Hey.” He greeted Harvey with a nod, then turned to the others. “Nice to meet you.”

Theo’s eyebrows were steadily climbing up his forehead as he took Nick in. “Hi?”

“What are you doing here?” Harvey asked.

Nick glanced at Theo and Roz. “We were hanging out tonight, remember?”

Harvey was pretty sure he hadn’t forgotten about any plans. As a general rule, the two of them didn’t hang out. Not unless Sabrina was there to make them, in an effort to foster some kind of friendship between their weird little triangle. And it wasn’t that Harvey didn’t like Nick. It was just that he’d been perfectly happy when it was him and Sabrina, and Sabrina-and-Nick existed in a faint, theoretical parallel timeline that resided mostly in Harvey’s mind and out of his sight.

Actually, Harvey had been perfectly happy when _Nick_ had resided mostly in his mind and out of his sight. It had certainly been an easier time.

“Who’s your friend?” Roz asked, when it became clear Harvey wasn’t going to introduce them to each other.

Harvey floundered again. He couldn’t exactly tell them, ‘well guys, this is Nick, my girlfriend’s boyfriend’. And not just because they didn’t know he’d gotten back together with Sabrina.

He was beaten to it. “I’m Nick. Harvey and I met at a book club a while ago. We kept in touch.”

“You go to book clubs?” Roz asked, a note of incredulity in her voice. Harvey made a face at Nick, who was doing a bad job of keeping his amusement in check.

“I do. Sometimes.” There was no way they were buying this.

“And wait, what about the movie? You said you were coming with us tonight,” Theo protested.

Okay, so those were plans Harvey _had_ forgotten about. Clearly the only way out now was a quick escape. “Yeah, rain check on that? Cause of the plans. Tonight. That we have.” He grabbed Nick’s arm and pulled him away from Roz and Theo, who were wavering somewhere between confusion and skepticism. “I’ll catch up with you guys on Monday, all right?”

“Okay… Bye.”

“Have fun?”

Harvey managed a smile before turning and making his way across the parking lot, Nick in tow. They got as far as a couple of cars away when Nick’s voice sounded, more high-pitched than his regular tone.

“‘The plans tonight that we have.’ You are _so_ smooth. No wonder Sabrina fell for your charms.”

Harvey feigned offense. “Do I look like I go to book clubs?”

“You absolutely do.” Nick let himself be pulled a couple of blocks into the town before apparently deciding he’d had enough and halting their walk. “Don’t you want to know why I showed up?”

It was a beautiful afternoon, one of those days that made you feel bad if you didn’t savor the sun reflecting off the pavement and warming the many bodies occupying the streets. Greendale didn’t flourish during summer as it did during autumn and winter, but still the changing weather was celebrated with colorful sunglasses and bare limbs. Two young girls rushed by with bathing suits peaking out beneath their clothes, probably on their way to the lake. Harvey had looked forward to enjoying the rest of his day, and it hadn’t included whatever plan Nick was eager to share.

Still, Harvey said, “Fine, what was so urgent?”

Nick brightened and leaned against a shop front advertising, of all things, healing herbal solutions. “Sabrina told you about her being top of her class?”

Harvey nodded. She’d called right after, giddy excitement palpable even over the phone. Harvey had expected her to do well—she usually did, regardless of the subject. But it was cute to see her not with her characteristic confidence, but with wonder at excelling at something new.

“I thought we could celebrate the occasion. A real party, a witch one.” Nick didn’t bother whispering.

“And you need me for that?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. You’ve known her for longer than I have, so I thought we could plan together.” Nick waited for a reply. “What? You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“No. I actually think it’s a great idea. She’ll love it.” Harvey willed away his apprehension. It was a nice gesture. Romantic, even. It wasn’t at all weird that this was something they’d be gifting her together.

Sabrina would love it. That was always the goal.

It was getting unbearably hot beneath the bright sun. Harvey wondered how Nick wasn’t sweating right through the leather jacket he’d decided to wear.

“So, do you want to go plan now?” Harvey asked. “Cause then I’m gonna need a drink.”

Nick pushed away from the wall. “Lead the way.”

 

On most days Dr. Cerberus was packed so that you had to fight for a spot, but with the sweltering summer weather most people had elected to spend their afternoon at the lake, or at one of town’s cafes that had tables outside. They easily found a spot near the bar and ordered their drinks from Dr. Cerberus himself, Sabrina’s aunt being absent at the coffee shop today. It was nice, quiet like this. Harvey didn’t have to speak up to be heard over the drum of voices and they could discuss their business undisturbed, even with words like ‘witches’ and ‘ritual sacrifice’ sprinkled into the conversation.

It took them a while to agree on a location, since Nick seemed doubtful they could sneak Harvey into the Academy and Harvey’s place was out. Eventually they settled on the Spellman home. It required them asking permission from Sabrina’s aunts, but Nick was confident he could charm them into agreeing. And who was Harvey to question that?

They talked long into the evening, their drinks condensing into small pools of water on the table as dusk fell and painted the sky a dusty purple. Most patrons had moved to the diner area already when Nick drew a line beneath his notes and leaned back into his seat.

“So, what do you think?”

“I think we just planned the best party Greendale’s ever seen,” Harvey said, feeling a little pleased with himself. He’d never been one for big romantic gestures—that was more Nick’s area, he gathered. But he couldn’t deny this was fun. He raised his fist, which got him a few seconds long confused stare from Nick.

“Warlocks don’t fist bump, huh?” He motioned towards Nick’s hand, which Nick reluctantly curled on top of the table, and knocked their knuckles together. “It’s like a greeting, between friends.”

Very slowly and with suitable dramatic timing, Nick raised a solitary eyebrow. “You mortals are so lame. Speaking of, no need to thank me for getting you out of that boring movie.”

“Boring? _Bride of Frankenstein_ is a classic.” Nick scoffed. “No, seriously. You can insult us puny mortals all you want, but we’ve made some damn good movies, which is more than I can say for you magic people.”

“Oh Satan, you’re actually serious about this.”

Harvey dug into his jeans for some money. “Wait, have you never been to see a movie?”

“When would I have seen a movie?”

They got up, gathering their stuff before moving to the bar to pay for their drinks. “I assumed Sabrina would’ve taken you sometime,” Harvey said. “She loves movies, like, really loves them. I mean, we even had our first date at the theater.”

Nick made a face. “Wow, very cute. No, she’s never taken me.” He slipped in front of Harvey and handed Dr. Cerberus the money for their drinks, waving away Harvey’s protests.

They stepped out into the night air. Harvey sensed a sudden change in Nick’s mood, something about the way he held himself. Had Harvey said something wrong?

“See you next week, then?” Nick asked. He’d shrugged his leather jacket back on, even though the weather was as hot as it had been during the day.

Harvey rocked back on his heels. “Uh, do you want to go, maybe? To the movie, I mean. Since I was gonna go anyway, and you’ve never been…” He wasn’t sure why he offered, except that he couldn’t remember ever spending this much time with Nick under such cordial and non-life-threatening circumstances, and he didn’t like the way Nick was suddenly eager to get away.

It didn’t exactly get him an enthusiastic yes. Nick frowned. “You mean, now?”

“Well, the movie starts in…” Harvey checked his watch. “Twenty minutes. So yeah, now.”

Nick’s expression remained blank for a few more moments, before his usual smirk reappeared. As if nothing had ever touched him at all. “Fine,” he said, already sauntering ahead to the winking lights of the marquee sign across the street. “Your treat this time.”

 

They ended up sneaking into the theater while the credits were already playing and settled in the otherwise empty last row, which was still littered with popcorn from the showing before. Not many of the room’s seats were filled, probably because very few people were interested in watching _Bride of Frankenstein_ for the third time this month. Harvey spotted Roz a few rows ahead, Theo presumably seated next to her though he was too small to rise above the back of the chairs.

Harvey ducked a little lower just to be sure. He could feel Nick’s eyes on him, could feel the silent amusement that radiated off of him, like the smug bastard he was.

“We could’ve just done something else if you wanted to spend time with me that badly,” Nick said. A lady in front of them turned around to shush him.

“You’re supposed to whisper,” Harvey explained. “Or not talk at all.”

Nick didn’t seem very impressed as of yet, but he dutifully sunk into his seat, legs splayed for comfort, and seemed content to remain quiet at least for the time being. Perhaps Harvey had expected a little more resistance. A disparaging comment or two about the acting, so typically stilted, or of the hokey special effects. But when he checked again after about half an hour, Nick seems transfixed, and it was Harvey who had trouble focusing on the movie.

He’d seen it twice before, both times with Sabrina, both times followed by an in-depth commentary on the monster as a metaphor for something-or-other—Harvey couldn’t remember. He liked these movies, but not in the way Sabrina did. Even with Roz and Theo, who did their best to make up for her absence, he felt the silences in their conversations where Sabrina would have chimed in with an obscure fact on 1930s monster movies.

It had been their first date, watching _Night of the Eagle_ in this same dark movie theater _,_ when Harvey had felt the moment was right and thus had leaned in to kiss her. Sabrina had smiled, turned his chin with her finger and told him to pay attention. In hindsight it was then he’d fallen in love with her, and again when she’d been the one to finally pull him close as the credits rolled.

Nick, surprisingly, was an equally rapt audience. Which didn’t mean Harvey’s wandering thoughts had escaped his notice.

“Not enjoying yourself?” He’d made sure to whisper this time. Harvey had to lean in close to hear.

“What?”

Eyebrows raised, Nick said, “You paid to watch the movie. Not me.”

Harvey was glad it was dark enough to hide the blood he could feel rushing to his face. “I’ve seen it before.”

On screen, the Bride cocked her head like a canary locked in a cage. Nick smiled, shrugged. Turned his head away to watch Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory go up in flames.

 

They waited until Roz and Theo had left before stepping outside. It was still busy, people ambling past on their way to dinner or simply out for a late night walk, as the marquee lights drew their long shadows across the sidewalk like ghosts. Harvey had preferred going outside at night before he knew monsters were real.

“Are you ready to admit defeat now that you’ve been introduced to the wonders of cinema?” he asked Nick as they followed the stream of people.

“It was… interesting,” Nick said, in that way where ‘interesting’ could mean anything from captivating to severely underwhelming. Even if he’d enjoyed it, Harvey thought, he wouldn’t have just come out and admitted it, so he decided to count it as a win. “How many of these have you seen with Sabrina?” was Nick’s follow-up question.

Two years of establishing a movie dates tradition. Harvey had lost count ages ago. “Too many,” he said. “She always makes fun of me for getting scared. You know, I never got why she wasn’t, but I guess I do now. There’s scarier things in real life than what Hollywood can come up with.”

“This is your thing, then. You and Sabrina’s.”

Harvey looked at Nick, who was staring straight ahead. He’d always imagined him as being above jealousy. From that night in Sabrina’s kitchen where he’d made it clear he was fine with sharing to the subsequent times they’d hung out, he’d seemed not just resigned to the arrangement, but pleased with it. If anything, Harvey had been the jealous one. Jealous of the magic Nick and Sabrina shared and jealous of Nick’s easy acceptance of this situation they’d created.

Except maybe Nick wasn’t pleased. And then what? Would he make Sabrina choose between the two of them?

“I guess,” Harvey said in an attempt to mitigate. “Why?”

“Just asking.”

He couldn’t bring it up again, not now that Nick seemed to want to let the subject drop. And anyway, surely this was more Sabrina’s issue. Her job to get Nick to bare his soul.

A little further down the street a crowd had gathered to watch a man in a tattered black cloak flip a deck of cards in bony hands as quick as lightning. He let a pretty girl in the front pick a card and then pretended to dig the same one out of his pocket, leading the crowd to gasp, easily entertained by the cheap trick. Nick rolled his eyes as they passed the magician, who was collecting coins in a top hat and making a decent amount of money.

“This town is filled with charlatans.” They were reaching the end of the road, where the center ended and the suburbs started. The houses there formed a string of lights, Harvey’s own home among them. “Do you want to see a real magic trick?” Nick glanced sidelong at Harvey. In the dark, his eyes appeared an almost opaque black, like those of an animal. His profile, Harvey realized, was an artist’s dream.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Come on.” Against better judgment Harvey let himself be cajoled into joining Nick against the side of a house, out of the way of the passersby. All of a sudden Nick was intent, inexplicably so—one of his mercurial moods. They seemed to come and go without any reason Harvey could distinguish.

“Do you have a coin?” Nick asked. Harvey handed one over without question, because why not at this point. Nick had sat through _Bride of Frankenstein_ with him. As far as Harvey was concerned that meant they were friends.

The chanting was Latin this time. Harvey had been spending enough time in the company of witches and warlocks the past few months to pick up some basics, one of them being the difference between English, Latin and Gaelic spells. It hadn’t proven to be very useful knowledge yet. Nick cupped his hands as if waiting to receive Communion, which was a pretty comical mental image. Nick Scratch in a church—Jesus would turn in his grave.

From inside his palms, a soft golden glow flared to life. Small enough so as not to be noticed by anyone passing by, Harvey had to lean in to get a closer look at what caused the flicker. In Nick’s cupped hands, a tiny bronze bird fluttered its gleaming wings. At first glance it could almost pass for a mechanical toy, one of those wind-up dolls, but the smoothness of its movements betrayed its true origins. Magic.

The bird opened its beak, and a sound like the chiming of a bell filled the air.

“What does it do?” Harvey asked, full of wonder for the creature.

Nick let the bird hop onto the sleeve of his jacket, where it dug its little claws into the fabric. “Not all magic has to be useful. That’s what mortals don’t understand. No offense,” he added at the look on Harvey’s face. “They always want to know what magic can do for them. How it can make them rich, make them happy. Even witches occasionally lose sight. But sometimes…” He stroked the bird’s feathers which rustled as if they were real. “Sometimes magic is just beautiful. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Lifting the creature to the level of his face, he blew out a soft breath, as slowly the gilded bird disappeared into a wave of golden dust that stayed suspended in the air between them for a few moments before drifting away on the breeze.

“And that,” he said, “is today’s lesson on magic.”

A bit of glitter had landed on the collar of Nick’s jacket. “Is that how you got all those girls to fall for you before Sabrina?” Harvey asked, resisting the urge to point it out, or worse, dust it off.

Nick seemed quietly amused as if someone had told a joke only he understood. All casual, he said, “Girls and guys. It’s foolproof.”

Any other time Harvey thought he would’ve found the words to respond to that. Tonight, he couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from that patch of gold dust.

“What?”

Harvey had been quiet for too long. He possessed none of the easy casualness with which Nick had spoken. Truth was, Harvey envied him for it. “Nothing,” he said, though what he wanted to say was: It’s late. I should go. I’m meeting Sabrina tomorrow and we’re going to the lake.

He could pretend he didn’t see it coming, but they would both know it was a lie, and Harvey had no more lies in him. Except that left him with no excuse for why he didn’t immediately pull away when Nick leaned in and kissed him. Why he froze just long enough to get a sense of the soft press of lips, almost as soft as Sabrina’s. Then, only then, did he take a step back. Nick’s hand, which had gripped the collar of Harvey’s shirt, fell to his side.

Stupid, Harvey thought, that he hadn’t caught on earlier to what Nick must have been planning since he’d ever so gallantly offered to pay for their drinks this afternoon. But when he looked closer at Nick’s face, he didn’t look pleased as Harvey had expected. Not a smirk in sight.

He opened his mouth to say something. Harvey cut him off. “I should go.”

“Harvey—”

“Goodnight, Nick.”

Harvey didn’t wait around for a response. Instead, he turned and left, not running as his mind was telling him to but walking, onto the high street and into the throng of strangers headed out of the city and back to their homes.

When he arrived at his house, his father was still up, moving about in the living room with the radio crackling some old country song. At the clattering of the door and Harvey’s keys hitting the silver key dish, he called out Harvey’s name, coming out into the hallway with a question about how his day had been. Harvey avoided his eyes and pretended not to hear.

His room was quiet and dim, and held the exact amount of people he wanted to see right now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the lovely comments so far, they make my day!

The next morning came far too early, with a minor headache and a memory of the night before in flashes. The black and white of the Bride’s wig, the golden flutter of a magic bird’s wings, and Nick. Nick smirking, Nick showing him a magic trick, Nick kissing… Right.

Harvey greeted reality the same way it had greeted him, which meant he drew the covers over his head and burrowed deeper into his pillow, like that would shut out his own thoughts together with the sunlight creeping in through the curtains. It didn’t, and then he remembered the date he had with Sabrina in—a quick glance at the clock—two hours.

So that was how Harvey’s day started.

He continued to evade his father’s eyes during breakfast, said he was hanging with his friends at Dr. Cerberus and he wouldn’t be back until later. His father believed him or didn’t care enough to ask which friends these were exactly. Maybe that required too much parenting.

It was still hot out, those last days before the holidays when summer could no longer hold back and rolled over town with a blinding sun and relentless heat. The lake was only a short walk away, at the edge of the Greendale woods where it diverged into Sweetwater river. As such, it was packed with sun-chasing teens from Greendale and Riverdale both, enjoying their free weekend as far away from school as they could. Harvey waved at a couple of people he recognized from Baxter High and carried on, following the water’s edge until the crowd thinned.

He found Sabrina lounging on a large red towel, sunglasses perched on her nose and hiding from the sun behind a book. She grinned when she spied Harvey approaching, crossing her legs beneath her and raising her chin, scarlet lips demanding a kiss.

“Missed you,” she said after a peck, her lipstick still impeccable.

“You too,” he said, and meant it. This little bit of normalcy: the two of them at the lake as they had so often their first summer together, Sabrina’s pale skin turning to a faint tan with every passing hour, days spent through mundane, comfortable conversation interspersed with long stretches of silence in which she’d lean against this chest so he could brush his fingers through her silky hair.

He trailed his fingers along the nape of her neck. “Need sunscreen?”

“Yes please.” She found a tube in her overstuffed bag. “I’m burning here. They never teach us the useful spells.” Lifting her hair to bare her skin, she continued, “What have you been up to? How’s life at good old Baxter High?”

Her skin was warm from the sun. Harvey’s own hands felt cold in comparison. He rubbed them together to heat them up before spreading the lotion across her back. “Same old,” he said. “Roz and Theo are thinking of starting a revolution against the new headmaster.”

Sabrina laughed. “I’d hex him if I could. But I think I’m breaking enough rules as it is.” She turned her head just enough to glance at Harvey from behind her sunglasses.

The guilt on his face must have been evident, because she smiled, now turning fully to face him. Her hands wrapped around the back of his neck and pulled him in. “Worth it,” she said before kissing him, properly this time. Her lips were warmer than the sun, velvet smooth. She smelled like sunscreen and lemon. “What about you? When are you getting your grades?”

“Next week.”

“You’re not worrying about that, are you? I’m sure you’ll do great.”

“Easy for you to say, miss top of her class.”

He wrapped a tendril of white hair around his finger as she grinned lazily up at him. “Well, it’s not easy being a genius either.”

“Agatha being jealous again?”

An adorable frown scrunched up Sabrina’s face. “And Prudence. As always. Nothing I can’t handle, and Nick’s there if they decide to get creative again.”

For a few moments this could’ve been any random day in that first summer he’d spent with Sabrina, just the two of them lounging and joking around, and for a few moments Harvey had almost managed to convince himself it was. Nick’s name, dropped so casually by Sabrina, had cracked that glass illusion apart, clean down the middle. There was a before and after, the turning point Sabrina’s sixteenth birthday, and here they were in the mirror universe.

This had been easy, at first, so easy that Harvey had almost believed his reservations had been the product of an anxious mind. Sabrina loved him, and she probably loved Nick, and Harvey had been fine with that. The jealousy he would deal with in his own time, and it would fade. And it had, for the most part, even if he still didn’t like to linger on what the two of them did when they were alone.

No, the situation had been fine, until it hadn’t been. And as always, the problem was Nick.

Maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe at heart, the problem was Harvey and his inability to compartmentalize.

But the kissing last night, that had been Nick.

“Are you that worried about school?” Harvey made a confused noise, and Sabrina’s concerned gaze turned fond. “You were miles away just now.” She pressed her lips to his jaw, climbing into his lap. The warmth of sun-soaked limbs seeped through his shirt as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing their bodies together into one long line of contact. “Do you need me to distract you?”

He let himself be kissed again, drawn under into her comfort. His eyes drifted closed.

Only a second later he opened them again when he realized he was suddenly holding air, Sabrina’s weight gone. She was one her feet in front of him, walking backwards with slow steps. “Last one in the lake pays for milkshakes at Dr. Cerberus.”

“I’m still dressed,” he yelled after her, but she was already gone, running across the grass with bare feet. He waited a few moments, until she’d reached the waterside and pivoted to grin at him. “You lose,” her lips read, before she jumped into the water. Like a siren, he let the sound of her laughter lure him in as well.

 

Half an hour later they collapsed onto Sabrina’s towel together, peals of laughter shaking their frames into each other. Sabrina burrowed closer into Harvey’s side, resting her head on his chest as they slowly quieted down. The sun had dried most of the water droplets off their skin when she shifted slightly so that her hair tickled his chin and she could reach her arm around his chest.

“Harvey?”

He hummed, the heat and Sabrina’s body against his making him drowsy.

“Are you all right?”

Her hand was tracing his sides, faintly ticklish but mostly soothing. He could feel her lifting herself onto her elbows to look at him and so he kept his eyes closed.

He couldn’t lie to her if he looked into her face now.

“I’m fine. Why?”

The long stretch of silence almost made him open his eyes, but eventually Sabrina said, “I don’t know. Is this… do you think it’s weird? Us and… me and Nick?”

“It’s been six months. Little late for that question.”

“I know, but if it _was_ weird. You’d tell me, right?”

It was weird. Probably not for the reasons she had in mind right now, though. Harvey sighed, rolling onto his side and blinking against the harsh light. Sabrina was looking out towards the lake, where a group of guys and girls around their age were trying to pull each other into the water. “What brought this on?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Nick said I just had to let go of—constraints of mortal conventions, or something.” Harvey swallowed a bitter comment. “But I meant what I said at the start. I’ll only do this if you want it. So if you don’t…”

“We’ve discussed this. Often. Some might say too often.”

Now it was her turn to hum, short and monotone. She smiled, but there was no energy behind it and it failed to reach her eyes. “Yeah, I know. It’s fine.”

“No, Sabrina, look at me.” She did, reluctantly. This must have been on her mind for a while, and yet he’d failed to pick up on it, too busy as he had been running circles in his own mind. She deserved better than that. “I love you,” he said. “That’s never going to change.”

“I didn’t think it’d be this hard. I just wanted you back.”

“And you have me.” He took her hand in his and used the other to brush her hair behind her ear. It always curled after she’d gotten it wet, not the usual artful waves she created with a curling iron and sweet-swelling product, but wilder, untamed. It was Sabrina as he thought of her in quiet moments, without her disguises and her imposed propriety, but the unguarded core. The flush of her skin where the sunscreen had rubbed off, the harsh ice in her eyes when she was angry.

So many times he’d gotten close to losing her.

“Promise?” she said, leaning her forehead into his.

“Promise.”

They stayed like that for a while, laughter and the splash of water fading into background noise as Harvey tried to keep his mind focused on the present moment—him and Sabrina, always.

But it wasn’t just him and Sabrina, hadn’t been for a while.

Sabrina’s head tucked into his neck, Harvey’s sensed the curl of her smile against his skin and felt like the biggest liar of all.

 

It was early Monday morning when Roz found him in the library where he was wasting time on his phone before class, and Harvey knew she meant business by how it was just her approaching him. She and Theo never left each other’s sides unless it was serious. So he let her corner him, because he figured it would be easier than the alternative, which was avoiding her for a whole day until she found him anyway after eighth period and told him off for the aforementioned avoiding.

“Are you okay?” was the first thing she said, and close enough to Sabrina’s question at the lake that it threw him off. She rested her cane against the couch and sat down next to him, then waited, as if they both knew what this conversation was about.

“Yes, I think?”

She hesitated. “When you said you were hanging out with your dad this weekend…”

Oh, hell. Harvey hadn’t thought her and Theo would be going to the lake on Saturday. If he had he would’ve suggested to Sabrina they go somewhere else. He wracked his brain for an excuse. Another one. Soon he’d be keeping a list. “Listen, Roz, I know what you’re thinking—”

“It’s fine,” she said, too quickly.

“It is?”

“Yeah, of course!” She was doing a lot of nervous hand waving for some reason. “It’s just that… well, Theo saw you guys at the theater and we didn’t want to be like, weird about it.”

_Oh_. Harvey was relieved for half a second at the misunderstanding, before realizing this was worse. “Roz…”

“I know your dad is a jerk, Harvey, but Theo and I just want you to be happy.”

So much worse.

“Thank you, seriously, but Nick and I… we’re not…” He shook his head in lieu of continuing that sentence.

Roz frowned at him in confusion. “It’s been months since Sabrina. I know it was hard for you to move on, but you are allowed to.”

If only she knew.

And what if she did? For one extended moment Harvey considered telling her. Because as she’d been talking, he’d realized that there was no one else he could confide in. Not Sabrina, who he would usually turn to. Not his father, not with this but really not ever. Definitely not Nick. Roz was, had somehow become, his best friend, and she was kind and empathic and a better friend than Harvey thought he deserved.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Nick’s a friend,” he said. “I can’t have friends?”

“Of course you can have friends.” She seemed a little offended. “We’re your friends. Exhibit A, me trying to help here.”

“Well it feels more like meddling to me.”

Roz’ hand skated across the couch before grasping her cane. “Fine.” She was up before he could stop her. “This is a guy thing, isn’t it? Being unable to talk about your emotions?”

“Roz.”

“No, never mind. I’ll stop meddling.” Someone had shifted the table a few inches to the left. In her hurry, Roz tripped and Harvey had to steady her. Rather than thanking him, she huffed out a breath, shaking off his grasp.

She’d taken no more than two steps before she stilled.

“Roz?”

It was as if she hadn’t heard him. She was looking out into the distance, her clouded eyes seeing something he couldn’t. It was the bell ringing out that broke the strange spell which had fallen over their little corner of the library.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” Roz said, absent. She barely acknowledged Harvey’s confirmation.

He was already in class when he remembered about her mind reading thing. She’d explained it to him once, not long after Sabrina had disappeared, and he’d pretended to understand it then even if he hadn’t, because it had been made clear to him at that point that kind of thing simply wasn’t part of his world. If he was being entirely honest, part of him had believed she’d made it up, even knowing magic existed.

Now he wondered what, exactly, she could deduce based on one simple touch.

And how many more lies he could add to the pile until it toppled over and spilled out, taking along everything he cared about.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter this time! Thank you to everyone who's reading this, whether you're leaving comments or not. I appreciate each and every one of you.

There are lies you tell to others, and lies you tell yourself. Desperately clinging onto the former as he was, Harvey knew he’d at least disposed of the latter a long time ago. If life had taught him anything, it was that illusions never got you very far.

The first lesson, the most important one, had been his mother dying. Of that, he remembered his father sitting him and Tommy down on the couch. Face white as ash. That same morning, he’d sent them both to school with a smile and a kiss for each of them on their foreheads, even though Tommy was now eleven and had started to grumble about that. It was the last time their father had done such a thing, but he’d also never lied. Their mother was gone, and it was time to grow up.

The second, Tommy dying. Harvey had known better, and yet he’d held onto the foolish, desperate hope of his brother’s return. It had made it worse, in the end. Sabrina’s glazed eyes, telling him the Tommy who’d returned wasn’t really Harvey’s brother, not the same one who’d ruffled his hair and defended him from their father. Her tears spilling over. The cold dead weight of a rifle in his hands and not-Tommy’s blank face. He didn’t remember much of that night beyond soundless flashes. Maybe it was for the best. The moral of the story stuck with him like glue, and that was enough.

Third. Nick.

In all fairness to Nick—though Harvey wasn’t feeling particularly generous right now—number three didn’t start with Nick. It started with Harrison Ford shooting a blaster at aliens, one of the only interests he, Tommy and their father had in common, even if they all had their own reasons for their eagerness to be present at the rerun screenings of Star Wars movies. Harvey had liked the story, he had. His father and Tommy had snickered over Leia’s metal bikini, and he’d liked that too.

He’d also liked the way Han Solo grinned at Leia, and it hadn’t taken him long to figure out that there was a marked difference, his father’s occasional sharp judgment plenty for even his childhood self to decipher.

Illusions never got you far. The thing was, sometimes the truth didn’t either.

When Nick knocked on his window, awaking him from his sleep, Harvey for a second thought he was still dreaming. It wouldn’t be the first time Nick haunted his dreams, though the mounting frustration on his face didn’t seem like something Harvey’s unconscious mind would procure. The Nick in Harvey’s dreams was charming and enticing, and definitely didn’t make rude gestures against the glass.

Harvey listened for any sounds of his father, but he seemed to be asleep for once. He walked over to the window and opened it to a crack.

“Satan, you sleep like the dead.” Nick was perched on the window sill, hanging on by what must be either magic or a better core strength than Harvey possessed himself. “Are you going to let me in?”

Harvey raised his eyebrows and didn’t move.

“Fine, fine.” Nick rolled his eyes, mumbled a phrase under his breath and then Harvey was staring out into the night, his window empty.

He sighed, turning around to find Nick lounging on his chair, feet on the desk and creasing the paper beneath. “I think that’s what they call breaking and entering,” Harvey said. He knocked Nick’s feet to the ground and sat down on the edge he’d vacated.

“I didn’t even break anything.”

It took Harvey counting to ten to not get into a semantics argument. There was no use, anyway, not with him. “Why are you here, Nick.”

“Are you coming to the party tomorrow?”

The way he was sprawled in Harvey’s desk chair, faint amusement crinkling his mouth, the soft tap of his fingers on the wooden armrest—Harvey had seen enough of Nick’s easygoing manner to recognize that this wasn’t it. There was an edge beneath it, something taut and foreign dressed up in a black turtleneck and shadowed eyes.

Somehow, though Harvey had felt jittery all week, right now with tiredness wearing down his heavy limbs and annoyed at having been pulled from his bed, he couldn’t muster anything but a weary exhalation. “I’ll be there. I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Just got confused, what with the radio silence.” Harvey watched Nick as he got up, pacing the length of Harvey’s bedroom and lingering once in a while to drag his finger along a picture or book on the shelves. In the semidark, with his black clothes, he seemed more like a shadow floating through the space. “You draw?” he said on his return to the desk, tapping the sketches scattered across the surface. “Sabrina said you were good.”

Rifling through them like he didn’t expect an answer, he paused at a few colored drawings of Sabrina, barely glanced at the ones with Roz and Theo, then returned them all into a neat pile. He dawdled at the edges like he hadn’t found what he was looking for.

“Are you done?” Harvey asked.

A few more grazes to straighten the paper, then Nick looked up. “I don’t know. Am I?”

As if abandoning the pantomime of the last few minutes, he stepped up to Harvey, into the space between his legs. Eyes dark and smile darker. If Harvey was expecting a kiss, Nick was intent on throwing him off, as he first traced a line up Harvey’s bare arm then let his hand fall so it rested on his knee, warm and anything but comfortable.

Eyes trained on Harvey’s lips, he leaned in. Harvey turned his face, Nick’s mouth landing on the edge of his jaw. 

There was a question in Nick’s gaze when he pulled back.

“What are you playing at?” Harvey asked. To his own surprise his voice sounded steady. His heartbeat was another matter.

“I’m just making sure we all get what we want.” The hand on Harvey’s leg migrated upwards, marking a steady path up his thighs. Miles away from safe. Harvey willed himself to focus.

“What we want. Does that ‘we’ include Sabrina?”

Nick’s face smoothed into a blank canvas. “She’ll turn around.” He recovered, quick as lightning, corners of his mouth curling into a mocking grin. “Besides, why should she get all the fun?”

This time when Nick’s hand crept forward, Harvey was prepared. He stopped him in his tracks. “Read the room, Nick.”

“I think I am,” he murmured, but he didn’t seem so sure anymore. It left the two of them standing there, silence creeping up on them like a third-party witness. For all his posturing, Harvey’s heart refused to slow down. Nick knew, must have known, but the bravado had bled out of him as well, leaving him still and contemplative, remote.

He stepped back. Harvey’s leg felt cold where his hand had been.

“Whatever,” he said. Bored, already moving onto the next thing. Harvey didn’t buy it for a second. Nick opened the window, night air rushing in with the sounds of the town. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He was gone in the blink of an eye.

For the rest of the night, Harvey waited for sleep to come. The hazy morning sun was already creeping into his room when he finally dozed off, falling into a dreamless sleep that left him anything but rested when he awoke.

 

“Are you seeing that Walker girl?” his father asked that evening when Harvey was already halfway out the door. His eyes were muddy, his hands clutching a glass of amber liquid that clearly wasn’t his first of the day.

“Roz?”

“That’s it, Roz. Nice family, the Walkers.” He took another swallow, staring into space as if contemplating this fact. “Pretty girl.”

Harvey stared longingly at the front door before turning back to his father. “She’s just a friend, dad.” He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a conversation about his life that wasn’t just about his grades or his work at the mines. Months ago Harvey had casually mentioned during dinner that him and Sabrina were over, and his father had grunted, and that had been that.

“I know what you think of me,” his father said.

“What I think of you? Look, dad, can this wait? I have to be somewhere.” Not that he was particularly looking forward to the party, but he should probably show up before the evening was over, lest he risk breaking his promise to Nick. Heaven forbid.

“You think I’m some old fool. A—a hick.” His father poured himself another glass from a half-empty bottle of brandy.

“I don’t think you’re a hick,” Harvey said, partly because it was easier and partly because hick wasn’t the word he’d have chosen anyway. “I’m glad you’re fine with me dating Roz, except we’re not.” He made another attempt at escape.

“Well you’re hiding something.”

Harvey paused in his tracks. That was more perceptive of his father than he’d expected. He almost wanted to say: there’s a whole list, actually, and where would you like me to start? But he knew where that would end, and it wasn’t with a blessing to date the nice black girl who lived just around the corner.

“I’m not hiding anything, dad. I’m going to the movies with a couple of guys from school, that’s all.”

His father seemed anything but convinced, lucid enough to tap into some parental instinct. Of all the times he could have chosen to dedicate himself to his fatherly duties. Harvey spared a thought for the scattering of sketches he’d made of Nick and which he’d tucked away in one of his textbooks, as well as the numerous drawings of Sabrina he’d left all across his room. The latter he could probably explain as lingering heartbreak, the former… But chances were slim his father cared enough to venture into his room anyway.

“Can we do this some other time?” Harvey asked, hand already on the doorknob.

His father frowned, then waved him off with a half-hearted call to have fun, attention already back on his drink.

 

The party was in full swing when Harvey arrived, hallway crowded wall to wall with people. He’d aimed for the right time, then. The throng pulled him in, bodies in various states of dress and undress flanking his sides. Like any party it smelled like alcohol and sweat, but beneath that was the burnt tang of cloves, betraying the true identity of the guests. Clearly, though, whatever decorum they possessed on a regular day, witches weren’t above getting wasted when the occasion presented itself.

A guy with dark, slicked back hair and glittering tears on his cheeks jostled Harvey and apologized by handing him a glass of something cold and red, winking at him so that the tears flashed in the multicolored lights.

“Don’t drink that.” Ambrose appeared from behind them, wrapping his arms around the guy’s shoulders and grinning broadly.

The fumes burned his nose when Harvey sniffed at the red drink. “Is it spiked?”

“Oh it’s spiked all right.” He took the glass from Harvey’s grasp and thrust it into the hands of a passing girl who seemed to be dressed for a funeral, if a very avant-garde one. She downed it in one go and pecked Ambrose on the cheek, leaving behind a smudge of black.

“Have you seen Sabrina?” Harvey asked before Ambrose could get distracted by the crowd.

Ambrose shrugged. “Somewhere inside.” The guy who’d handed Harvey a drink was pulling him deeper into the crowd, his arm wrapped around Ambrose’s waist in a gesture that suggested familiarity. “Don’t accept drinks from strangers,” he called out as he disappeared into the sea of bodies, leaving Harvey to fend for himself.

With Ambrose down that left two people he knew at this party, and last night’s meeting with Nick was still fresh enough in his mind that he was happy avoiding him for a while. He went off in search of Sabrina, hustling his way through the crowd. How many people had Nick invited, anyway? Surely there weren’t this many witches in Greendale? And Harvey was starting to believe magic folks were genetically predisposed to be attractive, because he’d never seen so many models in one place. Going by the stares he received, he was doing a lousy job at blending in too.

He found Sabrina and Nick together, already on the makeshift dance floor that had transformed the Spellman living room into a venue for PDA. The two of them were no exception. They were wrapped up into each other, oblivious to the other guests bumping into them. An 80s synth beat thrummed, dictating the rhythm of the dancing crowd’s movements. As the song reached its lively chorus, Nick’s hand brushed along the curve of Sabrina’s hip. Her black halter rid up, exposing a strip of pale skin. She leaned in and kissed Nick, head tilted back and ever swaying to the music.

They looked good together. Harvey was taller than Nick, but Sabrina still had to lean up a little, and Nick’s hands supported her weight against the small of her back, creeping lower with each passing second. The song merged into something slower and sultrier. Sabrina arched her back, Nick’s head buried into the crook of her neck and shoulder, and Harvey felt a rush of—something. Pins and needles running down his spine.

It was way too warm and crowded here.

He stepped back, right into a group of girls headed towards the dance floor. They invited him along with coaxing grins, lacquered nails brushing his skin, but let him go when he stammered out an apology.

The kitchen was less busy, if only slightly. It was worth a couple of stray party-goers to get a drink, a safe glass of water this time that he vowed not let out of his sight. His peace was short-lived as it only took a few minutes for Nick to come stumbling into the kitchen as well, shirt half-unbuttoned and hair a tangle that somehow managed to come across as charming anyway. Harvey took one look at him and walked out, ignoring Nick’s calls.

Somehow, the first floor had remained mostly uncharted territory for the party guests. Mostly, because Harvey could hear muffled voices behind some of the doors. He decided not to risk it, electing to lean against the wall instead. Because he was relentless and the universe allowed Harvey no reprieve, Nick found him there.

“I called your name,” he said, slumping down next to Harvey.

Harvey widened his eyes in a bad approximation of surprise. “Did you?”

“You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know that?” He was grinning at Harvey as he said it, his eyes fond and numbed with alcohol. “Seriously, lighten up. Sabrina’s asking where you are.”

Nick slid down further, legs spread out in front of him and head tilted back against the wall. He was drunk, not enough to slur but enough for his limbs to be loose, smile unbridled and without guise. Eyes closed, he patted the floor next to him. “Lighten up. Sit down.”

“How are you so unbothered?” Harvey said, but followed the instruction.

“Hm?”

“By the fact that you—that we…”

“Kissed?” Nick grinned and shot Harvey a sidelong look. “You know if you can’t say it…”

“Shut up. I’m serious, don’t you feel bad?”

“I feel bad that you can’t stop whining about it, yeah.” He bent one knee towards his body, glass balanced precariously on top. “I get that it’s a big deal in your cramped little mortal world, but for us witches it… just isn’t.” He leaned in closer, breath smelling of something sweet mixed with the sting Harvey remembered from the drink Ambrose had warned him not to taste. Nick grinned and bit his lip like an invitation and a taunt at the same time. Alcohol loosened him, but it also made him sharp in a way he usually wasn’t. 

Harvey shoved him back, a few inches further along the wall. “Maybe you forgot, but Sabrina grew up in that little mortal world. I guess I just don’t get why you’re doing this. You’ve got what you want. Unless…” Harvey paused. “You don’t want me that badly.” Did he?

Nick didn’t respond. The grin was gone from his face, his eyes trained on the ceiling. Harvey watched him, let himself watch while knowing Nick was aware and could feel his stare, but beyond caring at this point. There was a smear of red along Nick’s jaw, traces of Sabrina’s lipstick a mark upon his skin. His lips were darkened, either from the lipstick as well or from the drink. Debauched, was the word.

Harvey’s treacherous breath faltered.

As if he’d heard, Nick angled his head and caught Harvey’s gaze.

He expected a flirtatious comment, wrapped in a barbed-wire aloofness, but for once none was forthcoming. Instead, Nick’s eyes slowly traced the contours of his face as if mapping the surface. “Kiss me,” he murmured.

With not even alcohol as an excuse, Harvey did. Nick tasted different from the first time, the spice of the drink overwhelming everything else, but his lips were just as soft. Harvey let himself sink into it, like sliding into a hot bath, Nick’s hands seemingly everywhere at once as he crawled into Harvey’s lap. “Don’t,” Nick hummed when Harvey pulled away for a breath, hauling him back in, and Harvey let himself be pulled along, feeling control slip away from him and finding himself unable to care. 

It was no surprise that Nick was more experienced in this, but it didn’t seem to matter as he murmured encouragements against Harvey’s lips, mouth tracing and caressing Harvey’s name as he repeated it, over and over, until it ceased to mean anything at all. Time slipped away from him. Irrelevant with Nick here, Harvey’s heart and the blood in his veins humming.

“Well well,” a voice floated downward, puncturing Harvey’s focus and making him pull away. His gaze followed along three pairs of patent leather heels and black dresses, up to the amused faces of a group of familiar witches. They barely spared him a glance before shifting their attention towards Nick. Prudence clicked her tongue, dark mouth pursed. A cat pouncing on a small bird couldn’t have looked more pleased.

“Oh Nicky…” she said. “You never fail to live up to your reputation.”

“Get lost,” Nick bit out, scrambling off the floor and leaving Harvey to dust himself off, trying to regain some dignity.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is this not a public hallway at a party _you_ invited us to?” She turned around to her two friends who echoed her sly grin. “Honestly, anyone could walk by.”

“This doesn’t concern you.”

“Oh but it does. Sabrina is our friend.”

Harvey scoffed. He couldn’t remember the last time Sabrina had mentioned Prudence’s name in a positive sense, and she’d never gotten along with Agatha. The redheaded witch’s name he couldn’t even recall.

“What was that?” Prudence’s dark eyes could pierce through walls. Harvey regretted making a sound almost immediately. Then she smiled, a sweetly disdainful twist to her lips, which was even more frightening. “Who knew Sabrina’s pet mortal had hidden depths?”

The high flush on Nick’s cheeks might have been embarrassment or anger, Harvey couldn’t tell. “Leave, Prudence,” he said. “Before I make you.”

Her laughter was like the clattering of a waterfall. “Yeah all right.” She stepped up to Nick, brushing an obstinate lock of hair into place before turning his cheek with a manicured finger. He let her. “Wouldn’t want to miss the best part. Carry on, boys. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Grinning at her own joke, she swiveled on her heels and retreated back towards the stairs, Agatha and the other girl following with a swish of red and black curls.

Carding his hands through his hair, Nick studiously avoided Harvey’s eyes, a far cry from his earlier brashness. Harvey couldn’t get the hang of it. There was the Nick who showed up in his bedroom at night, self-assured with no concept of personal space, and there was this Nick, who let Prudence rattle him into a hasty retreat.

 “I’m going to find Sabrina,” Nick said once he’d buttoned his shirt all the way and tucked the ends back into the waist of his pants. He looked almost put together but for his distracted air.

“Wait.” Harvey risked a hand on his arm. Nick didn’t shake it off, but he didn’t seem to welcome it either. “Can we talk?”

“Rather not.” He dislodged Harvey’s grip with ease, then hesitated, like he was weighing his words with care. “Sorry,” he said eventually, so quietly Harvey almost thought he’d misheard.

For minutes after Nick had disappeared, Harvey stood in the hallway until the buzzing under his skin had faded and his head felt nearly clear. What a mess he’d made. He felt again that low thrum of anxiety he’d experienced at the lake with Sabrina, when he’d had the sense that the past few months had been a very lovely dream and this was the rude awakening some part of him had known was coming all along, and ever since then he’d just been paddling along. Waiting for the next bend.

It was easier to look at it in those terms, and anyway he’d always felt more like a sidekick, a spectator to his own life. He wasn’t that guy, the one who went to his girlfriend’s party and made out with her other boyfriend. That guy was the kind of guy Harvey had spent his entire life avoiding. Because Harvey didn’t excel at school or sports. He was a middling writer, if pressed he’d say he was a decent artist. But he was at least a good boyfriend.

Past tense—had been. He probably couldn’t claim that one either after this.

He knew what he had to do, of course. If anything his father had taught him had actually stuck, it was to take responsibility for your actions. Even if you didn’t want to.

Even if it meant potentially losing Sabrina. Again.

 

He found her in the kitchen, white hair darkened with sweat and talking to a girl whose voice was so shrill, he could see Sabrina wince every time she laughed. Nick was nowhere to be found. She spotted Harvey before he could announce himself, dragging him into a hug with a pained smile. “Save me,” she whispered into his ear, followed immediately by apologies to the other girl about how she really had to catch up with Harvey, so sorry, see you later.

“You are devious,” he said as he let her drag him to a corner of the kitchen where it wasn’t so crowded. She grinned, leaning in close as if to reach for a bowl of snacks behind him, and quickly pecked him on the lips, scanning the room immediately after.

“Oh please. I could have hexed her if I wanted to. This was me being nice.” Any other time, her cheerful mood would have been contagious. As it was, Harvey just felt bad when she shot him a sly, conspiratorial look and said, “You know I can’t kiss you here. But we could go somewhere quiet.”

“I think most rooms have been booked, actually.”

She made a face. “I knew I should have locked them.” Her fingers, not giving up so easily, crept towards him on the counter to tug at his shirt and brush the skin beneath. “We can dance, if you want.”

“Dancing’s allowed?”

“It’s my party and I’ll dance if I want to, damn it.”

He made a show of considering that. “I don’t think that’s how the song goes.”

“Spoilsport,” she said with a pout, moving as if to forcibly tow him to the dancefloor. Then she paused, her face lighting up. Harvey was confused for half a second right up until he found himself face to face with Nick, who tugged Sabrina close and pressed a kiss into her cheek. She giggled. “And where have you been? I was just trying to get Harvey to dance, but he’s being a drag. Tell him he needs to come dance with me.”

In a deadpan tone, Nick said, “Harvey, go dance with Sabrina.” Harvey smiled before he could catch himself.

Sabrina shook her head. “Two guys and neither of them willing to entertain me. What’s a girl to do?”

Nick’s hands were still wrapped around her waist, her body leaning into his. They were carrying on the mock argument, taking turns at playing offended, every bit the enviably happy couple. If Harvey and Sabrina had been anything like this, Harvey wasn’t sure how Roz and Theo had refrained from telling them to get a room more often than they already had.

It was different, being on the outside. Harvey remembered watching their casual intimacy in the haunted house last winter and still found it difficult to believe there hadn’t been anything between them then, much as Sabrina assured him. She had no reason to lie about it, though he’d found that for all the talk about sharing and openness they’d done, there were enough secrets between them to go around.

Now, months later, he was still on the outside, and yet not. Actor and spectator. It was a fine balance, and he’d thought he’d been doing a fine job walking the tightrope when he knew now that the whole thing had been crooked from the start. Maybe if Harvey had been more who he’d wanted to be instead of who he was, or if Nick had been less—less Nick.

The night of the tornado, Harvey had dreamed of storms and witches and for the first time in weeks it hadn’t been Sabrina’s sparkling eyes chasing him from dream to dream. 

It had never been a level playing field, not even at the very start.

Harvey had no magic tricks. He couldn’t go back in time and tell his past self to get it together, he couldn’t look into the future and figure out a way to salvage what had been damaged, maybe irreparably.

The only thing he could do—knew he should do—was level the playing field.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Harvey said to Sabrina. “In private.”

She looked up. “Now?”

Nick was shaking his head outside of Sabrina’s sight, frowning at Harvey.

“Nick can come, actually,” Harvey added. In for a penny…

Sabrina didn’t resist, which Harvey was grateful for. She opened a door near the fridge which turned out to be the pantry and kicked out two frazzled witches who glared at her until they realized who she was, at which point they just seemed curious. The three of them stepped into the overflowing room, Sabrina turning on a lackluster overhead light bulb and staring at Harvey expectantly.

He hadn’t let himself think this far ahead for fear of not being able to go through with it, but that left him with no real idea of how to broach the subject. Lead into it, or get straight to the point? His throat felt dry. _Don’t chicken out now,_ he told himself, wishing his inner voice didn’t sound so much like his father.

“I wanted to tell you earlier, I just didn’t know how,” he said, trying to ignore Nick’s unyielding stare.

“You look like someone died.” Sabrina reached out a hand as if to offer comfort, then pulled back. “Just tell me.”

“Nick and I kissed.”

Harvey watched a series of emotions flicker across Sabrina’s face—confusion giving way to surprise before settling onto a distant blankness, the only sign she’d registered his words the tense hold of her jaw. All the while she didn’t speak, and the pressing silence weighed more on Harvey by the second, until he could no longer hold in the words bubbling to the surface. “I never meant to lie to you, I just didn’t know how to…”

“When did this happen?”

Harvey risked a quick glance at Nick, who shrugged with an obstinate air, as if to say, you’re on your own here. “A few weeks ago,” Harvey admitted. Then, “also, earlier, we…” He trailed off, hoping his expression would convey what his words couldn’t.

Her lack of a reaction was more unsettling than if she’d simply gotten angry, all the more because he could tell she wanted to say something but was swallowing it back. He’d rarely seen her lost for words, and he didn’t think she was even now. She was simply biding her time, molding the shapes into her mind. In the meantime she turned and looked at Nick in silent expectation.

In the hallway not even half an hour ago, after Prudence had left, Nick had seemed almost penitent. Harvey knew he hadn’t imagined the quiet ‘sorry’, the way his eyes had skittered away every time Harvey tried to catch his gaze. But here and now, Nick rolled his eyes, then said, “He’s making it sound like it meant something,” and Harvey realized the one thing he should have done was talk to Nick before all this, because whatever apology Harvey had been building towards, Nick wasn’t planning to cooperate.

Sabrina’s silent observation was broken in a flash. “Do you think that makes me feel better?” she said, and it was as if the temperature in the pantry had dropped a few degrees, frost lacing her voice and snapping through the silence like a whip. “If you kissed and it didn’t mean anything?”

“What he meant,” Harvey said, sensing an intervention was in order, “was ‘sorry’.”

“I didn’t say I was sorry.”

Harvey and Sabrina looked at him, and it was only because of Sabrina’s low “what?” threading a thin line between disbelief and anger that Harvey knew he hadn’t misheard.

“Oh please, you know it’s the solution that makes the most sense. I understand a mortal’s resistance, but you know better, Sabrina. I don’t know how you still can’t see it.”

The way Nick said it, Harvey knew this was a discussion they’d had before. Not this specifically, not on a moral level, but they’d discussed Harvey, Harvey’s feelings, Harvey’s place in their strange little triangle. Perhaps he’d given up the right to be offended, but he felt resentment creeping up on him nonetheless.

“So you went behind my back?” Sabrina said, inching closer to outrage with each sentence, and Nick was never going to back down, not now. This was what they did, they doubled down. Harvey could see it in the set of their eyes, the rigid line of their shoulders. “At least Harvey was willing to tell me,” she continued.

“Of course. Harvey, the sweet mortal who can do no wrong.” Sarcasm dripped from his words.

“Hey,” Harvey said.

Nick’s expression was as cold as Sabrina’s. “If you two are so happy together, why even bother with me?”

This was miles away from how Harvey had expected this conversation to go those few times he’d let himself think about it. Sabrina was standing next to him, not touching him but like she’d picked a side and she was sticking with it. Harvey hadn’t even realized there were sides to pick.

“Funny you should say that, because I’m wondering the same thing right now,” she said, quiet but sharp as a knife’s edge.

The door slammed shut behind Nick, knocking a few packs of flour off the shelves. It was as if he’d taken all the crackling, nervous energy in the room with him when he’d left, because as soon as he was gone Sabrina’s shoulders slumped, the fight bleeding out of them. She stooped to pick up the flour, white dust suspended into the air.

“Sabrina,” Harvey said, when he realized he wasn’t going to acknowledge him.

She didn’t turn around. “Please don’t.”

“Will you let me explain?”

She straightened, her profile turned to him, and he could see her chest rise and fall in a sigh. Her eyes closed briefly. “Why, when we’re both just going to end up saying things we’ll regret? I know I will.”

Before all the magic stuff, all the mess, Harvey could count on one hand the times they’d fought. It had been over silly, trivial stuff—Sabrina being late, Harvey wanting to meet her family. Arguments that had burned bright and fizzled out just as quickly, resolved in less than a day once they’d apologize and shared a strawberry milkshake at Dr. Cerberus.

Tommy had been their first real fight.

He’d forgiven her for that because he couldn’t imagine his life without her. This, he had no idea how to fix.

“So… what now?” he said.

“Now I’m gonna out there and enjoy the rest of my night.” An echo of a smile crossed her face. “It’s my party and I’ll dance if I want to, right?

She must be angry, hurt, but he could barely detect it beneath the shield she’d drawn up around herself. He hadn’t thought she was a good enough actress to hide something like that, and it made him realize she’d changed. Learned to deflect, to protect herself against more than physical harm. It made him ache for easier times even as he couldn’t help but admire the girl she was becoming.

“You can stay if you want,” she said. “I’ll call you. Just not right now, all right?”

The noise of the party swept into the pantry when she opened the door, a girl with a pixie cut sweeping Sabrina into a hug and pleading her to dance. It was as if nothing had happened. They were joined by a group of witches, Prudence and her cronies among them, and Sabrina accepted a drink from her, let herself be led onto the dancefloor. She didn’t look back. The only one out of all of them who did, the only one who’d seemed to notice Harvey was there, was Prudence. Her wide, black-rimmed eyes a companion to her constant dark smirk.

At least someone had gotten what they’d wanted out of tonight. Harvey couldn’t even really begrudge her that.

He was too tired for the way Sabrina’s hips swayed to the music, the way Prudence whispered something in Sabrina’s ear, staring at Harvey all the while. He left them there to dance into the night.

The outside air was still warm and balmy, sweet-smelling pine woods all around him. A few people were milling around in the yard, one warlock making small fireworks appear out of a pile of dirt. Harvey sat down on the porch and watched the show for a while, colors swirling around him, bleeding out into the dark fog.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, and thanks to everyone who's been reading. There's one chapter left after this one, which will be up next weekend probably. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy this one!

Sabrina’s call didn’t come until five days later—five days during which Harvey compulsively checked his phone until his father got frustrated and threatened to take it away. Harvey didn’t want to rouse his suspicions any further, and so from then on he only checked his phone in his room, or quickly glanced at it underneath the table during dinner. On the fourth day he nearly caved and called her himself, but he’d made a promise to give her the space she needed, and that included letting her set the terms. No matter how much his skin crawled with unresolved tension.

He didn’t hear from Nick either. When he wasn’t thinking about Sabrina, Harvey wondered where Nick was, who he was with, if he was with anyone. If he felt guilty, or angry, if he’d wanted to reach out but chickened out at the last minute. Harvey didn’t call him either. That could wait until after he’d spoken with Sabrina. Whenever that was to be.

Four days of silence, and then when she called he nearly missed it because he was out with Roz and Theo. Roz, who had been quiet around him ever since that morning at the library, raised an eyebrow when he frantically searched his coat for his phone. It seemed she wasn’t going to bring it up, which was just fine with him, really. He excused himself and disappeared behind one of the stacks that held Dr. Cerberus’ sci-fi collection.

“Sabrina?”

“Hey.” She was silent for a bit as he tried to analyze the tone of her voice on that one word. Angry? Sad? Exasperated? “Are you busy right now?”

“No, I’m free. I mean, I’m out with Roz and Theo but… it’s fine, I’ve got time.”

He could hear her laughter through the phone, faint but there nonetheless. It lifted a weight from his chest, one it felt he’d been carrying for weeks. That was all it took, just the sound of Sabrina’s laughter.

“Can you come over later today? My aunts are out and Ambrose can keep himself busy.”

“Of course,” he said. He’d have to come up with something for his father, but she’d called him. That was worth suffering through some extra scrutiny.

Roz didn’t ask him who’d been on the phone, probably because she knew anyway, since Sabrina was one of the only people either of them knew that still called people on their cell phones rather than texting them. Unless she thought it had been Nick. Harvey didn’t know if Nick was a texting person. He owned a phone, Harvey had seen him carry it. Never use it, though. It seemed like something far removed from the arcane and elite magic world, but maybe he used it to call Sabrina.

Apologizing to Roz and Theo for having to leave so early without giving any reasoning they could call him out on later, he made his way home, coming up with excuses during the walk to offer to his father. In the end, he told him he was going to watch a baseball game with some friends from school. These nameless friends had saved him more than once now, and Harvey thought his father might have questioned it a little further if he hadn’t been so happy Harvey was hanging with guys who apparently watched sports on the regular. Occasionally, low expectations had their advantages.

Even hurrying, it took him a couple of hours before he finally reached Sabrina’s porch. There was still some glitter dust scattered beneath the stairs, mixed between the sand and grass there, reflecting the light from the setting sun.

“Hello.”

Harvey stumbled a few steps back as he realized Ambrose was leaning against the porch railing, watching him. He was wearing something that Harvey would describe as a robe but probably had a different, more specific name and which was covered haphazardly with a scarf, like he’d just gotten up and had thrown on the first thing he’d found.

“Hey. I’m here for Sabrina,” Harvey said.

Ambrose looked him up and down, a long, searching look that could have meant just about anything. Eventually he hummed and waltzed down the steps. “I’m off anyway. You two have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He seemed to find this last bit especially amusing.

He’d left the door unlocked and Harvey let himself in just as Sabrina was coming down the stairs.

“I thought I’d heard you talking,” she said.

Harvey shut the door behind him and awkwardly paused there. “I passed Ambrose. I didn’t know he could leave the house again.”

“Apparently Luke pulled some strings.” Sabrina wavered when she’d reached the last step, like she too was unsure of what direction to take. Just as quickly, though, she recovered. “Aunt Hilda made her special iced tea. You want some?”

“I never say no to iced tea,” Harvey said, feeling reassured and a little less like crossing a freshly frozen-over lake when Sabrina smiled.

They ended up on the porch, sipping their sweet and sticky iced tea and watching the sun sink behind the trees. Close enough to accidentally brush arms a couple of times, but with enough distance for it to carry a loaded ambiguity. For a good while, neither of them spoke, and it was almost easy. Sabrina seemed to think the same thing, because she gave a regretful sigh before speaking.

“How have you been?”

He glanced at her.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s skip the small talk.” If she was apprehensive, she wasn’t showing it. Sabrina was never shy when it came to words, always having some remark ready, and she’d clearly prepared for this moment. “Why didn’t you just talk to me?” she asked.

“I didn’t know how you’d react. I mean, I didn’t even really know—” He trailed off. Unlike Sabrina, he couldn’t seem to find a way to translate his thoughts into something comprehensible, something that would make her understand the tangle. “I’m just sorry, all right?”

The bench they were sitting on was just tall enough that Sabrina’s feet barely touched the ground. She scraped her toes against the wooden slats as she thought this over.

“I’m not angry,” she said at last, as she covered his hand with hers. “I guess I just want to understand. It’s silly of me to say this, I know, but I don’t like having secrets between us. Do you get that?”

Harvey nodded. “I can try,” he said. And he did. He told her about his apprehension at the start, how alien he’d felt knowing her and Nick belonged to a world that Harvey would always be an outsider to. How he’d tried to separate his envy of Nick from his curiosity and found them inextricably linked. How they’d ended up watching _Bride of Frankenstein_ , the magic bird, the party. Sabrina didn’t try to interrupt him, or even nod or make encouraging sounds. She simply let him speak even when he tripped over his words or took a while to form a thought, and within her silence he told her everything, leaving nothing uncovered. No more secrets. She’d been right, he owed her that much.

“I know giving you reasons doesn’t make it okay”, he said, after he’d arrived at the argument in the pantry, but she held up her hand before he could repeat his apology.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not, Sabrina.”

Shaking her head, she slid her hand beneath his and turned her palm upwards to tangle their fingers together. “Can’t I decide that? I don’t want to fight. I hate fighting with you. My life is a mess, I’m up against Satan himself and, probably worse, Agatha is after me again. I fought with Aunt Zelda this morning. But you’ve always been there for me.”

“I cheated on you.”

“And I messed up in so many ways. I’ve hurt you much worse than that.” She squeezed his hand and gave him a small smile. “Honestly, I’m trying to be the bigger person here. You should encourage it.”

He recognized her attempt to lighten the mood and gave her a smile in return. “It’s a little weird, honestly. Are you sure Agatha didn’t get to you?”

She slapped his arm, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “Asshole,” she said, in between laughter that shook her body as well as the rickety bench. It was contagious, and before long he was laughing along with her.

“Wow.” Sabrina blew out a breath once they’d finally calmed down and she had supplied them with fresh iced tea. “I can’t believe I got cheated on by both my boyfriends. You know those confessions from anonymous women in the magazines Aunt Hilda reads? _I don’t think my fiance is the one, but his brother might be_? I should submit one.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m kidding. Mostly. But I’d change your name, of course.”

Just like that, they were laughing again.

It was almost strange, how easy it was to follow Sabrina’s cue and move past everything that had happened. Maybe it shouldn’t have been—they’d managed to move past Tommy, after all. But the forgiveness had been Harvey’s to grant, then, and he found it was easier to rely on his own feelings than to believe Sabrina could do the same. Still, her words seemed genuine.

Once it had cooled down a little, they moved back indoors, since neither of them was wearing a jacket and even summer nights could get chilly. They ended up in Sabrina’s room, where she shoved a collection of old textbooks and herbs off her mattress to make space for them to sit. Which reminded Harvey there was one thing left to discuss.

“Have you heard from Nick?” he asked, eyeing the pages left open which seemed to detail some kind of gruesome ritual, going by the accompanying pictures. “Please tell me you’re not cursing him.”

“What? No.” Sabrina kicked the book shut with her foot and shoved it beneath her bed. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t ever do that, but no. It’s homework.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, fine, it was for Agatha. But I’m not doing it, all right, so you can keep the moralizing speech for another day. And, also, no. I haven’t heard from him.” She paused, curling her legs beneath her and smoothing wrinkles out of her skirt. “Have you?”

“No.” They sat in silence for a bit. “So we should probably call him,” he said.

“Do you want to call him?” There were no wrinkles left to wrestle with, so she’d moved on to the sheets. She was also steadfastly ignoring his eyes.

“That’s a trick question, isn’t it?”

She looked up at that, rolling her eyes. “It’s a _question_ ,” she said. “No secrets.”

“Do _you_ want to call him? No secrets.”

She was full-on pouting now, which she knew he couldn’t resist. “Don’t turn my own words against me.” Giving up on the sheets, she stared out of the window instead, letting him brush a few stray hairs behind her ear. “I guess I am angry at him. The things he said at the party… it was like he just didn’t care.”

“I doubt that’s true.”

“I know that.” Back at the party, Harvey had felt there was more to the story than he’d been a part of, that there were conversations he hadn’t been privy to, crucial pieces of the puzzle that was Nick’s behavior. Sabrina confirmed his suspicions when she said, “There’s one more thing. Nothing bad,” she reassured immediately upon seeing the look on his face, “it’s just, he’d talked about it before. We did, I guess. About changing things.”

“Me and Nick.”

She nodded. “I told him not to push it because I thought—well, I thought you wouldn’t be interested.”

Apprehensive now, Sabrina watched Harvey’s face closely, like she wasn’t sure how he would react to this. Honestly, Harvey didn’t know how to react. He realized Sabrina’s anger at Nick was more the fact that he’d discarded her words, and yet at the same time, he thought he was starting to understand Nick’s actions as well. His contradictions shared a common theme, one Harvey could relate to.

“Please don’t think we were conspiring,” Sabrina said, interpreting his silence as hurt.

He pulled her closer and maneuvered them so that they were lying down, his head on a pillow and hers on his chest, her hair fanning out and brushing his skin. She made a humming noise and burrowed closer into his side. It was hotter here in her room and the warmth of her body in close proximity was almost uncomfortable, but neither of them moved.

“I think we should call him,” he said.

He felt the press of her lips against his throat, velvety soft, probably leaving a smudge of red lipstick he’d have to be careful to wipe off later. “All right,” she murmured into his skin, then leaned up to kiss him, the contact familiar and sweet, like being reassembled with every mingling breath.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so grateful for the response to this fic. Harvey/Sabrina/Nick is such a niche pairing, and I originally wrote this story to entertain myself and ExistentialMalaises and as an attempt at writing a semi-realistic exploration of polyamory. The fact that I'm getting readers at all, let alone so many lovely comments, is amazing as a writer. This is the final chapter, but as I've been reviewing it I'm thinking I might enjoy writing a coda, something short and sweet where our characters get to just be for a bit, because I'm not ready to let them go yet. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy!

Summer’s end was wistful. Unlike the languid heat of July, the days of August rushed by like water slipping through Harvey’s fingers. Two more years until graduation. Two more years, and next summer would become the last summer he’d spend in Greendale. He’d promised himself as much when Tommy died.

Two more years, and the town of Greendale would never see his face again.

But for now, he counted down the time until the start of the school year with every cross on his calendar, and spent the remaining days with Sabrina and Nick, prolonging the inevitable with a rebellious resolve.

Today they’d wound up at Dr. Cerberus after a lengthy argument about the pros and cons of staying covert, versus strawberry milkshakes. For obvious reasons, the strawberry milkshakes won.

Sabrina lounged across from Harvey in the booth, her head on Nick’s shoulder. They matched, her forest-green dress and his black shirt, even though it was summer, even though it was hot. Feeling underdressed, Harvey let Sabrina’s spirited arguments drown out the thoughts in his head.

“You’re missing the point,” she said, waving her straw around like a conductor’s baton and nearly poking Nick in the eye in the process. “It’s a metaphor for class differences. The vampires are aristocratic creatures, who exploit the regular, working class people and drain their life force.”

Harvey watched Nick’s eyebrows draw even closer together. “Just nod and smile,” Harvey stage-whispered, before Sabrina pushed one of her feet, propped up on the seat next to Harvey, into his side. Nick grinned and pulled her closer.

“All right, genius. You explain it then.”

Pushing his milkshake aside and rolling up his sleeves, Harvey said, “Okay, so, Count Orlok is a vampire right? He sucks human blood because he’s evil.”

“And?”

“That’s it,” he shrugged. “He’s evil.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes.

“I’m with him,” Nick said, throwing Harvey a conspiratorial smile. “Vampires _are_ evil. Everyone knows that.”

“That makes no sense! It’s fiction, not reality. These filmmakers didn’t even know vampires exist.” She was fired up, her eyes determined and her voice just a bit too loud for the late-night hour. Even after all the movies she and Harvey had seen together, he still loved her like this. In a minute, he knew, she’d start quoting interviews the directors had done, steamrolling any argument anyone else could’ve made. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d heard the vampires-as-a-metaphor-for-the-rich before, sometime last year when _Nosferatu_ had been part of a local film festival. He could probably string together some arguments based on what he remembered from that night. But Nick had never heard it before, and it felt only right that he should get to enjoy it too.

As usual around this time of year, it was relatively quiet at the diner slash coffee shop for a Thursday evening. A couple of college students home for the summer lingered by the bar, soliciting free drinks from the overwhelmed bartender, and a few tables further an older couple sipped their glasses of red wine in silence. This was Greendale as Harvey liked it—not empty, but quiet, a small town he’d hopefully look back on with fondness someday while looking out to a city skyline from his modest but comfortably furnished apartment.

A foot jostled his, snapping him out of his thoughts. Across the table, Nick was looking at him, faintly amused as Sabrina dove into F.W. Murnau’s filmography. Harvey shook his head, wishing not for the first time that Nick was less perceptive. Nick raised his eyebrows, his arch and understated version of a shrug, and turned to Sabrina, but his foot stayed where it was, hooked behind Harvey’s ankle.

That was fine. New, but fine. Harvey caught the gaze of one of the college students and tried to mimic Nick’s unaffected sprawl. It probably didn’t work as well when it looked like you had to fake it.

In truth, Harvey liked these moments. He liked them more when there was no one around, lazy evenings on Sabrina’s porch or extensive lunches in the woods, but this was good too. It didn’t feel weird to share this with Nick, not in the way Harvey had thought it would be, and it was nice for once to be proven wrong, for his worried overthinking to be just that. Some of it felt hazy, surreal, like something out of a daydream that would inevitably end, but very occasionally, between the brush of Sabrina’s lips against the skin below his ear and the dark promise in Nick’s eyes, he let himself believe it could be more than that. That a summer could stretch beyond a few months of wonder, far out into a nebulous future.

Sabrina’s headband sparkled in the twilight as they headed out later, still giggling over the college student who had told them she’d written a thesis on _Nosferatu_ and thought Sabrina’s analysis was particularly enlightening—especially for her age. Indignation and pride still warred on her face as she repeated the girl’s words. She skipped ahead, down the street, grabbing Harvey’s hand when she felt they were walking too slow.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she said when they’d reached the edge of town, raising herself on the tips of her toes to press her lips against Harvey’s cheek, the corner of his mouth, then his lips. “Ambrose said there’s a party we can’t miss. We’ll sneak you in.”

“It’s not the sneaking _in_ that’s the problem,” he said, thinking of his father and the ever-growing list of excuses he’d had to invent.

“Please?” Sabrina’s hand was warm in his, her eyes pleading. “Nick’s parents are out.”

Harvey wrapped his arm around her. “I’ll try, okay?” he said, knowing he’d end up saying yes and he’d have to weather his father’s frown, like if he stared hard enough into Harvey’s eyes he could figure out why his son was out so much. Two more years—but two years was a long time to keep a lie going.

Sabrina’s beaming smile made it worth it, at least. She pecked Nick on the lips, then laughed when he pulled her in for a proper kiss. “I’m late already,” she said, pushing him back, then repeated, “Tomorrow,” while staring at Harvey as if threatening him to back out. Satisfied with his response, she spun around and promptly disappeared into thin air.

“Show off,” Nick scoffed. “That’s third year magic. Even I don’t study during the holidays.” He crouched down to pick up her shiny headband, which had fallen onto the ground as she’d evaporated. “Below average execution, though.”

Harvey stared at the space where Sabrina had stood just a moment before. How was he supposed to get used to magic when they could do things like _this_?

“Walk you home?” Nick asked, then strolled ahead without waiting for Harvey’s reply. Harvey followed him.

What he dreaded most about school starting again was the return to normalcy. Chemistry, Math, even English seemed far removed from his new reality, which included evaporating witches and haunted houses and life-threatening apparitions. He still didn’t understand how Sabrina had done it—to focus on something as trivial as passing a History test when there was a world out there that contained spells which could alter the passage of time. Harvey wasn’t part of that world, but he’d been dragged into it anyway, half reluctant, half giddy with newfound discovery.

“You’re thinking,” Nick said, slowing his steps and glancing at Harvey.

He shrugged. “Most people do.”

Nick threw him a smile tinged with what Harvey liked to imagine was fondness, an expression he’d only seen directed at Sabrina until recently. It made a warmth unfurl in his chest that was—not unpleasant, and not unfamiliar either.

 A few months ago, he’d had no reason to stay in Greendale.

Nothing else was said between them, but as they walked down the track that separated the sprawling fields from the woods, Nick veered closer until Harvey thought he’d reach out to hold his hand, like they were—boyfriends. It was dark out, a comfortable shadow-dusk pierced by a half-moon, but it wasn’t _that_ dark. Harvey quickened his pace and heard Nick’s step falter in response.

The lights were out when they arrived at Harvey’s place, even though it wasn’t that late, which meant his dad must’ve fallen asleep early. Good news, then. Harvey didn’t like his father’s drinking, but he could appreciate the few times it worked in his favor.

“Hey,” Nick said before Harvey could head inside, grabbing Harvey’s wrist and pulling him back. “I thought we were good. Tonight was fun, right?”

Harvey looked away, out into the trees that made up the view from his bedroom window. He imagined he could see two glowing eyes peer back, watching, waiting. The eyes were always there now, in the corner of his mind where his imagination and memory collided. He shivered, and Nick glanced to the side as well, as if checking to see what Harvey had been staring at.

“It was,” Harvey said, drawing his attention back. He worked up a spark of energy to make the rest of the words come out. “It’s just that—summer’s ending. It won’t be the same.”

Nick frowned. “Well, we’ll all be busy, of course. But that doesn’t mean we won’t still hang out.”

“I know.”

Unconvinced, Nick wavered for a second, then said, “Is this about the magic thing? Sabrina said you—” He cut off the rest of his sentence when Harvey rolled his eyes. Nick and Sabrina had been discussing him, then. No surprise there. “Jealousy is a bad look on you, you know,” Nick said instead. “Makes your face all—weird.”

_Thanks_. You’re one to talk.” Nick, who had seduced his girlfriend’s other boyfriend because he didn’t like the thought of being left behind. Nick, who still refused to admit to doing such a thing at all. If there was anyone who didn’t deserve to give Harvey a speech on jealousy, it was Nick.

“If you think Sabrina would abandon you now, you’re an idiot. She loves you. We’ve been over this. We went over this several times, in fact, which I would know because I was there.”

_She loves you_. How simple Nick could make it sound, when the reality of it was anything but. If it was only about Sabrina loving him, and him loving Sabrina return, Harvey wouldn’t be anxiously checking the windows of his house for signs of life.

“Come to the party tomorrow,” Nick repeated, his question less pleading and more coaxing. “One night to forget about all this.” He stepped closer, angling Harvey’s face back when he turned his eyes towards the house. “I want you there, Harvey.”

_She loves you_.

He wasn’t sure which one of them was holding back here, and for whose sake. It was deceptively easy, to let the silence carry them forward.

Harvey was sixteen, for God’s sake. He’d never wanted to be a normal teenager this badly, and at the same time wished to be anything but—to live different life where all of this could make sense and he’d know what to say, as if by magic. Anywhere but here, anything but this.

“I’ll come,” he said. For once, Nick’s smile wasn’t his imperious smirk, but something softer and warmer. Like there was no distance there at all. Like the three of them could go to parties, linger in the heat of summer, be in love. Harvey’s new world was one in which magic existed. Maybe that meant they could do all those things—be all those things—and all it took was for him to believe.

Back in his room he took out a red marker and crossed another day off his calendar, leaving three more blank squares of freedom. If Sabrina had her way, there’d be nights spent at some extravagant magical equivalent of a rave and sun-drenched days on the grass of Nick’s massive garden, in the shade of an apricot tree flush with ripened fruits. Harvey wondered if there really was a spell to extend the summer, or to freeze time so it would stay like this forever, too hot, too sweet, but somehow just right. Anything to prolong the change—because he knew it would.

He’d never wanted time to slow in Greendale, not since Tommy died.

Outside, in the dark mass of the woods, the glowing orbs hovered. Harvey thought of the crisp smell of Sabrina’s perfume as she’d kissed him this morning, and the weight of Nick’s hand on his neck as he’d kissed him just now. When he blinked, the lights were gone, the trees simply trees.

He closed his blinds.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](queennsansa.tumblr.com).


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